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Nurses at centre of parking ticket row with council

26 April, 2011 | By Sarah Bryant

Nurses in Sussex have been handed parking tickets after accusations of misusing their special permits.

Worthing Borough Council said staff from Sussex Community Trust were taking up residents’ parking spaces, after complaints were received. In response, council officials issued parking tickets to cars displaying nurse permits.

Union officials at Unison have accused the council of unnecessary measures. They said up to 60 employees had been given tickets in the past three weeks.

Branch secretary Peter Atkinson said: “If they think the system is being abused, take the numbers of the cars they think are wrongly parked and follow that up, don’t give absolutely everybody a ticket.”

In a statement, a Worthing council spokesman said the permits were being used by staff to park for free outside their workplaces.

He said: “All NHS staffs are aware that the permits are only for use on domiciliary visits… To date, only 2% of the healthcare permit holders in receipt of a penalty charge notice have proven to be carrying out legitimate domiciliary visits.”

He said no appeal would be turned down if staff could prove they had been on a patient visit when the ticket was issued.

A spokesman for Sussex Community Trust said: “Worthing Borough Council have agreed to rescind inappropriate parking tickets on the receipt of a letter from a manager confirming date, time of visit and road being visited.”

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